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Cape Wind Ready To Bring First Offshore Wind Farm

Posted by timothy on from the confident-predictions-led-to-the-big-dig-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Cape Wind Project, a wind farm of 130 turbines to be built in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod, can finally move forward as they have been given a green light by the US Minerals Management service. Leaders from labor, civic, and environmental groups across Massachusetts and the country hailed the release of the report, as it is the final federal environmental report needed for the long delayed and much scrutinized project to finally move forward. When completed, Cape Wind will be capable of supplying up to 420 megawatts of electricity, potentially offsetting as much as a million tons of carbon emissions and saving more than 100 million gallons of oil every year. But the environment wont be the sole beneficiary of Cape Wind. It will likely be a boon to out of work Massachusetts residents, as well, given that as many as 1,000 green jobs could be brought to the Bay State in addition to a significant supply of clean, renewable energy."

12 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Two major roadblocks by homesnatch · · Score: 2, Informative

    The two major roadblocks were this federal report and Ted Kennedy... Ted's bloated ass is in the hospital and the federal report gives the green light.

  2. The Loyal Opposition by Van+Cutter+Romney · · Score: 3, Informative

    If anyone wants to read what the Alliance To Save Nantucket Sound wants to say about this, it's here.

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  3. In related news... by ruin20 · · Score: 3, Informative
    seagull populations decrease as biologists note heavy shark populations near turbines.

    think I'm joking right?

    there's already a lawsuit

    1300 raptors are killed annually. Among them are 70 golden eagles that are federally protected. In total, 4700 birds are killed annually.

    although I'm sure these are a little better planned out then they're predecessors I still haven't heard anyone talk about this in a long while.

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    1. Re:In related news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      More birds are killed by #1 Buildings/bridges/antennas/etc,#2 Cats, #3 Cars, #4 Planes (flight 1549?) than by Wind Turbines, by more than an order of magnitude. Wind turbines represent less than 1% of human caused bird/bat kills. http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_environment.html#Bird%20and%20bat%20kills%20and%20other%20effects.
      Also,the golden eagles should be ok with this one since they don't hang out miles from shore.

    2. Re:In related news... by Crazy+Man+on+Fire · · Score: 5, Informative

      What you forgot to mention is the wind farm you're talking about was built over 30 years ago and uses outdated technology. The multitude of smaller turbines turn faster and are much more dangerous to birds than today's larger, more efficient, and slower turning turbines. In fact, the older turbines are being slowly replaced with newer ones to produce more electricity for less money while also killing fewer birds.

      From the Wikipedia article you linked:

      Considered largely obsolete, these numerous small turbines are being gradually replaced with much larger and more cost-effective units. The small turbines are dangerous to various raptors that hunt California Ground Squirrels in the area. 1300 raptors are killed annually. Among them are 70 golden eagles that are federally protected. In total, 4700 birds are killed annually.[2] The larger units turn more slowly and, being elevated higher, are less hazardous to the local wildlife.

    3. Re:In related news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You wrote "although I'm sure these are a little better planned out then they're predecessors I still haven't heard anyone talk about this in a long while"

          The reason you haven't heard about it is that it truly isn't a real problem anymore. Generally, when you read about wind turbines and bird kills, you are reading about the Altamont pass. Indeed, most of your own links are references to Altamont. Altamont has about 5000 turbines of about .1 megawatt each. The smaller the turbine, the faster it spins, so these spin pretty quickly.

          In contrast, modern turbines are _MUCH_ larger. The CapeWind project will be using 3.25 megawatt turbines. Yep, thats 32 times larger than the altamont turbines. So, there will be 32 times fewer blades to hit birds. Those blades will be much larger, so the birds will have an easy time seeing them. The blades will also be moving much slower, so the birds will have a much easier time avoiding them.

          I would expect the bird kill of the Cape Wind project to be hundreds of times less than Altamont. Indeed, one pet cat (just the one) might kill more birds in some years than the entire Cape Wind will kill.

    4. Re:In related news... by flaming+error · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Audubon Society likes windfarms in general and this one in particular.

      But thanks for playing.

  4. Re:Economics in one Lesson by Punko · · Score: 2, Informative

    .... while completely ignoring the velocity of money. People employed by the govt. still buy things. Especially haircuts.

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  5. They Still Need to Employ People To Build/Maintain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please, sweet jebus, read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. You cannot advance an economy by moving money and jobs from the private sector to the public sector. Every dollar that goes into this project through taxpayer money is a dollar not spent on food, clothing, haircuts, etc. All those local businesses will eventually see that reduced income and be forced to downsize. With government services, the most you can hope to do in the long term is break even. There is no competitive incentive to drive the service provider toward efficiency, and so public services tend to be the least efficient out there, as well as being the most prone to corruption. Any thing can be made to seem cheap if you subsidize it with tax money. People only look at that one thing, and not at all the other things that are negatively impacted.

    Oh thank you for the Economics 101 lesson, I needed it so dearly. Could you please explain to me how they plan to build these windmills? They will probably be imported from Turkey, right? Not a red cent will be spent on local people or bring local jobs?

    My dad poured cement for the foundations of about a hundred windmills on Buffalo Ridge in Minnesota. Oh, but the project was government subsidized so ... well, I hate to break it to you but he was still paid. He still bought food for our family with that money. It wasn't magic money that flew away to China once the government spent it on something. Nor do I expect this windmill project to be entirely outsourced to another state or country. This creates jobs which in turn gives the local folk money to be "spent on food, clothing, haircuts, etc."

    Your explanation is no better than my explanation which looks a very complicated situation with many complex irrational variables in a paragraph of two year old logic. Get real.

    I generally don't like subsidizing anything but your argument is a fallacy and I will pass on your suggestion of reading that book.

  6. What about the one in denmark? by lyberth · · Score: 2, Informative

    So the fact that there has been one in denmark for quite some time doesnt count or what?
    http://www.hornsrev.dk/index.en.html

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  7. Re:Finally! by goodmanj · · Score: 2, Informative

    My only concern is for the overall turbine design and aging repair costs associated with a salt water environment.

    The Dutch and other European countries seem to have solved this problem (though I guess only time will tell, none of these farms is very old...)

    http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL3192557920070903

  8. Re:Alan Walters died last week by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Informative

    But with this we get the worst of both worlds... It's paid for with public dollars, but 100% of the ownership, and 100% of the profit go to a private sector owner (Cape Wind).

    Don't let the propaganda fool you. The opposition to this project about who was, and who was, and who wasn't getting a cut of that money. The links in this summary only point to one side of the story. Good luck finding a single word on the Cape Wind site about where the funding is coming from.